Vietnam blocks journalist from attending UN rights review

Vietnam blocks journalist from attending UN review
of its human rights record

GENEVA,
February 2, 2014 - Pham Chi Dung, a respected
independent journalist and civil society advocate, was
blocked by Vietnamese authorities from leaving the country
yesterday evening to attend events in Geneva during the UN
Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on
Vietnam. He was to be a featured speaker at a UPR side event
on February 4th titled “With Membership Comes
Responsibility: Ensuring Human Rights in Vietnam.”

Pham
Chi Dung, possessing a valid Vietnam passport and Swiss
visa, was prevented by police from boarding his flight at
Tan Son Nhat airport in Saigon on February 1st. According to
Mr. Dung, authorities seized his passport and stated that
his participation at the United Nations would be “harmful
to the human rights image of Vietnam.”

“Vietnam is violating one of the stated principles
of the UN review process, that of ensuring the participation
of all relevant stakeholders, including non-governmental
activists. We therefore urge the Human Rights Council and UN
High Commissioner Navi Pillay to speak out against this
gross breach, and to defend Vietnam’s courageous champions
of human rights.”

Organizers of the UPR side event will
arrange for Pham Chi Dung’s message to be presented at the
United Nations even if he cannot physically
attend.

“Only authoritarian governments deny citizens
their freedom of travel and right to free expression. We
expect the international community to be even more eager to
hear Pham Chi Dung’s views on the challenges facing civil
society in Vietnam,” said Duy Hoang, spokesperson for Viet
Tan, a Vietnamese pro-democracy organization and co-host of
the UPR side event.

Pham Chi Dung is an independent
journalist and researcher whose work has appeared in
prominent publications, including the BBC, Voice of America,
Radio Free Asia, and Radio France Internationale. A prolific
writer and political essayist, Dung began a literary career
in 1986 and continued writing for numerous online
publications. A Communist Party member for 20 years, he made
headlines when he publicly quit the party in December 2013,
calling for a multiparty system. Pham Chi Dung holds a
doctorate in economics.

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